Users often may earn reward points as part of a transaction with a merchant or issued by a credit card company or a distributor. For example, a merchant and/or issuer may award a user one point for each dollar spent. In this case, a $100 purchase will result in the awarding of 100 reward points, which are tracked in a reward point account stored on a reward point server computer managed by the merchant, issuer or a third party service provider. In addition, credit card issuers may implement their own reward point system, such as AMERICAN EXPRESS MEMBERSHIP REWARDS. In this card issuer-based system, a user may be awarded one point for every dollar spent regardless of the merchant. For example, if a user spends a total of $2,465 in one month with his credit card, the issuer may award him with 2,465 points in a reward account. Often these merchant-based programs are implemented independently from a card issuer-based program, such that a user may be awarded with reward points in multiple accounts based on the same transaction. Airline frequent flyer programs operate similarly and may award points or miles based on the distance or cost of an airplane trip (or on the value of the customer to the airline rather than its distance or cost).
Many programs offer redemption programs in which the user may trade in, or redeem, his reward points in exchange for goods, services, or discounts. For example, a user may redeem 20,000 MEMBERSHIP REWARD points for a music player device, or he may redeem 50,000 AMERICAN AIRLINES points for a free flight or seat upgrade, etc. A major problem in this field is that redemption options are limited to only certain goods available from a certain merchant, issuer, or catalog. Also, users often have small amounts of points in several accounts, each of which provide no meaningful redemption options. My issued U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,594,640; 6,842,739; 6,820,061; 6,829,586; 6,947,898; 7,096,190; 7,512,551; 7,624,040; 7,624,041 relate to the exchange and/or combination of reward points from various user accounts so that the aggregated reward points provide greater redemption options to the user. This new invention is for a reward point exchange platform in which consumers (users), merchants, manufacturers, issuers and other partners may interoperate to the benefit of all parties.
In particular, it is desired to provide a reward exchange platform wherein users may place a bid of reward points from a user reward account stored on an issuer computer for redemption towards purchase of an item from a merchant.